The Instruction Manual
by Darkwyn B. Dazzled
Summary: Sam and Dean in the aftermath of IMTOD.


One _very l_ong taxi drive in the freezing rain that was so unusual for the month of June.

Check.

One overly priced, dirty and flea infested motel room rented for the next two nights.

Check.

One emotionally disintegrating older brother who was still fighting a low grade fever from the miraculously healed wounds inside of him.

Check.

The instructional manual describing how to put said brother back together again before he clams up and does more damage to an already cracked psyche?

Dead, as of 10:41 am.

Sam moved gingerly about the hotel room, laying salt lines and checking the locks, all the while aware of his brother, Dean, on the bed nearest the door. The elder Winchester had barely _breathed_ since being led to the edge of the bed and told to sit; hadn't uttered so much as a word since 10:41 that morning. Sam turned from the last window, drawing his mouth into a tight line; he studied his older brother, who seemed completely unaware that he was in a motel room and not the hospital anymore.

Gritting his teeth, Sam went to the bathroom in four giant strides. Whipping the door almost off its hinges he searched for a towel to dry himself and Dean off from the cold rain outside. Anger raged through his system, right alongside it was good old-fashioned grief, but anger was winning the battle right now. Anger because he knew this would happen, that Dean would shut down; wallow inside his own skull for as long as was needed to shove every scrap of emotion into a tight little control box, and then emerge again in a couple of weeks, as if nothing had happened.

He refused to let that happen. So it was with angered, jerky movements that he knelt before his brother, who was still staring blankly ahead of him as if the putrid yellow daisies wallpaper was the most terrific sight to behold in the entire world. He ran the towel over Dean's dripping forehead, feeling the heat from the fever there, than down his arms, through rain soaked hair, the entire time he was searching for any sign of acknowledgement, a sliver of recognition. None came, no movement on Dean's part aside from the fine tremors the cold trip from the hospital and the fever had induced in him.

It was like a heightened state of shock, this shut down mode. Sam had seen it only once before, in the weeks leading up to his acceptance letter to Stanford, when he and his father did more fighting than talking and Dean…

Shaking his head, he finished toweling Dean's hair. Sam sighed, maneuvering his gaze until he could at least pretend he was making eye contact with his brother. That green gaze was dulled to the point where Sam hardly recognized it as belonging to Dean anymore. He briefly imagined this was probably the way his brother had looked in the weeks after the fire that had claimed their mother. Although he has been too young to see it, he could imagine it well enough now, and it caused him to shudder.

"Dean." It was simple; to the point. Too much talking might cause Dean to flee, but at least he would have to _move _then. Of course, there was nothing; not even a flicker. Sam's patience was not good in the best of circumstances. Right now, having not too long ago found his father dead on the floor of a hospital just a few rooms away from his miraculously healed brother, his infamous temper was beginning to flare.

Sam dropped all pretense of being gentle. Gentle wasn't going to draw Dean out of this mental cave, hell it had taken Dad's misfired fist to drag him out last time. When it had been meant for Sam, and connected with Dean's intervening face instead, he had broken out of his silence long enough to tell them both the whole situation was getting out of hand and suggest that he take Sam to a motel for the night (they had been living in a rented trailer for the better part of a year while Same graduated high school).The silence had descended again once they were in that long-ago motel room, and Sam had been apologetically gentle, which had solved nothing. _So fuck gentle_, Sam decided.

He roughly grabbed the edge of Dean's shirt, yanking it up and over his head. This seemed to break through enough for Dean to shove roughly back and fix him with a glare. Nothing in the way of words yet, but Sam wasn't finished. Glaring back, he grabbed his brother's foot and ripped a boot off. This got him a harder shove, and got Dean to start taking the other one off. _Fine_, Sam thought, _you can still function enough to undress yourself_, and he backed off for several seconds. Until Dean had stripped to his boxers and stood stock still, clutching his jeans and looking more lost than Sam had ever seen him; than he handed him a pair of sweat pants and a dry t-shirt which he had already gotten out for just this reason.

"The great Dean Winchester and you can't even put on your pajamas. What would Hunters' Digest have to say about that, hm?" Sam joked, knowing at this point he could probably go and blow up the Impala (if it was in one piece) and not get a reaction. His anger was deflating. He hadn't given up yet, but the fight was leaving him as his new priority was making sure he and Dean got some much needed sleep.

Finally dressed himself, he led Dean to the side of the bed where he had turned the covers down. Feeling a twinge as he remembered it was his dad who had drilled it into him to never lie on the top most cover in a seedy motel "_Could be any number of disgusting, diseased fluids there, Sammy,"_ he could still hear his gruff voice say. Sam wondered briefly if that same gruff voice was rumbling in Dean's memory right now. If it was, it apparently wasn't motivation enough for Dean to break his vow of emotionally retarded silence.

He motioned for his brother to get beneath the covers and into the (hopefully) clean sheets. Dean stretched out stiffly beneath the sheets but didn't close his eyes, opting rather to stare up at the chipped ceiling paint.

Looking back on this night, Sam would never remember how long he spent studying his older brother who continued to stare blankly at the ceiling. The thoughts running through his head would remain forever a jumble of _too-damn-exhausted-don't want-to-lose-you-too-can't-believe-he's-really-gone-how're-you-ever-gonna-pretend-you're-alright-when-you-come-back-are-you-even-coming-back-this-time. _

"You're not going to talk for a while, huh?" He'll remember asking. The answer could have been a continued blank stare, or a small shiver into scratchy motel blankets, but later on he would always remember that the answer had really come with a single tear and a simple, whispered plea of "Sammy."

A day in a half later, Dean started talking. A short, clipped request to go see what was left of the Impala at Bobby's yard and Sam made the call. He was just grateful that _that_ walking instructional manual had been spared.


End file.
